


What Would You Do?

by nightofdean



Series: A War Story (Non Redacted Version) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blood, Death, Explicit Language, Gore, War, actual realistic take on steve's war experience, allusion to junior juniper, and the teams reaction to said death, good on you if you notice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 16:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1864044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightofdean/pseuds/nightofdean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.” </i><br/>― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Would You Do?

**“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue.” - Tim O'Brien**

 Captain America or Steve Rogers it didn’t matter what they called him. He was still the same person, the same man who volunteered to become a literal military weapon. The same man who jumped out of an airplane, and rushed a heavily armed HYDRA base, all to save his best friend. For some reason people, America, saw this as virtuous. Of course they had all been fed the uplifting, no one died, version. The non gory version.

 Not the one he remembered at least. He was taken aback, but not for long, when he discovered that America saw him as a ‘hero’, an inspiration. He wanted to call them out, but ultimately couldn’t. They’d ‘known’ him for too long to have their stories shattered.

 That had happened to him, during the war. He had honestly thought it would be like whenever Bucky chased the others away, stopped them from beating him to a pulp. God, he’d been so fucking naive.

 The reality, the sick, fucked up reality, was that you never got that close to the enemy in war, and if you did, well you were probably dead. And if you weren’t dead, you were scrabbling for a knife to stab the kraut that somehow managed to fall in your foxhole (lost his way, probably pissing his pants) and now both of you are scratching and kicking, fighting to the death.

 War is not uplifting, it is not virtuous and if you're feeling uplifted at the end of a war story, feeling moral, than your being sold a lie, the biggest fucking lie ever.

 The Howling Commandos had been dispatched to the answer a desperate call for help from the French Resistance against the Vichy leaders. It was looking to be a short trip to help the French push back the Italians, poke a hole in the Italian forces.

 The Commandos were all suitably riled up about the idea, putting the Italians in their place and at the same time, blowing some tanks to kingdom come. Steve was all for it, of course. The French were at the end of their rope, barely holding on.

 The mission of course as with everything else turned for the worse.

 A pop of displaced air, the air whistled with the distinctive deadly sound of an approaching mortar. It landed in slow motion, while the Commandos ran in fast forward. Like a nightmare on repeat he can see it still.

 They all ran, of course they ran. The list goes, like so:

  1. Your life.

  2. Your teammates life.

  3. Civilian life.




 There was no debate at the time, only instinct.

 A sharp scream ripped through thick dust filled air, Steve knew, knew that sound. It was the shattered sound of man who was bleeding out, scared as shit, asking for his mother.

 Blood coated the cobbled streets, deep red and flecked with leg fragment. The young private leg was gone.

“Medic, médecin, médecin!” Steve shouts, turning in circles, rifle still held tightly in hand.

 A French medic comes rushing from around the corner, stopping several times for cover, skittish.

 “Cap, his pulse…” says, Manelli, voice wavering slightly. Steve stays silent, but his teeth connect loudly, grinding.

 “Fuck, he’s bleeding out like a geyser.” mumbles Jones, his gaze locked on to the bleeding stump of the private.

 Like most men at war Jones chooses to use coarse language and jokes to cope with the reality before him, it usually only takes one man to start them all in.

This time it’s different.

The frenchman has arrived and is simply at a loss, there are no bandages large enough for this wound, and it clearly shows on the the medic’s face. He says something rapidly in French, a death sentence.

The dying private splutters, choking on blood, the medic turns the kid on his side, saving him from a more humiliating death. The young private shudders, his light skin pale and sweaty, the medic holds the boys hands together, listening as the private frantically asks the medic of something.

The Commandos don’t understand all of it, but they all know the second the boy’s dog tags and crumpled bloody letter are pushed back at him. They see the medic shake his head in promise anyway. Another shudder racks the boy.

It was taking to long.

“Jesus, give the kid some morphine.” Bucky shouts, stepping forward, he’d reached his limit hands were clenched till white,  expression blank (almost) Steve saw the horror reflected within his eyes.

The medic responded in kind, shouting at Bucky, they were all at their limit. Emotionally. When the medic’s words drifted off, they all cursed.

There wasn’t any morphine.

They watched transfixed unable to leave. No man left behind...to die alone.

 The Commandos stood at parade rest, as the kid cried for his mother, pleaded for death, swore vengeance, then sighed as he accepted his fate. Silence fell over the small French town, the private stared skywards eyes blankly reflecting clear skies.

 It wasn’t till later that the Commandos started to express their disbelief, denial, grief. They all coped differently. Steve denied, until he woke up sweating from nightmares. Bucky glared and killed as many Germans as possible, death be damned. The others fell into their own rhythms.

 It was a sick, twisted grief cycle but always started with crude remarks.

 “Leg blown up like, mincemeat, fucking hilarious.”

 “You think everything is hilarious, Jones.” No one seemed keen to join Jones this time, no one ever stopped him though. They knew, if he didn’t joke he would shatter.

 “Seriously, stupid kid, doesn’t he know what a mortar sounds like, fucking stupid. Fucking saddest thing in the world. French pansies must be desperate.” Jones, laughed harshly, his head shaking negatively.

They were in some unnamed forest in France heading toward Vichy. Noise Discipline wasn’t necessary but preferred. Jones continued, his voice rising in pitch.

 “I can guarantee that I won’t need no college courses after this, I could tell ya exactly how many quarts of blood we’ve got in our bodies now?”

 “And how many is that, Jones.” responded Dugen from the middle of the patrol.

 “I don’t know, a lot though, a lot of fucking blood.”

 Silence fell for a few seconds, the only sounds now, the crunch of leaves, and gentle chirp of birds above.

 “Which one of us will be next?” Surprisingly it was Manelli that spoke, whether it was to himself, to his teammates or to some higher power, it didn’t matter.

 Cohen who had thus been silent until then spoke, “What’s the diff, we’re all expendable?”

 That was the end of the conversation. The Howling Commandos proceeded to the next checkpoint in silence.

No one denied it, they fought with a human weapon every day. If one of them died they’d be replaced. What was the difference?

**Author's Note:**

> Thing number one I love Tim O'Brien, he is a genius. Number two, the last two bits of dialogue are actually from the comics, in which Junior Juniper dies, the youngest of the commandos, that was their reaction. 
> 
> Also I know nothing about these characthers, except Steve and Bucky. So I'm sorry if the others are OC, or something. I'm just writing this to prove a point. That war is ugly and unrepetenent, and that even Steve Rogers doesn't always know what to do. As you could tell he was completely useless in this.


End file.
